


Exception to the Rule

by hops



Series: Sizzled Out [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Fighting, M/M, Multi, another argument? nobody is surprised, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 00:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: Magnus wants an apology for the fight Taako picked with Lucretia. Instead, Taako picks a fight with him.





	Exception to the Rule

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey! This work is best read in the context of the Sizzled Out series (linked in descrip above), or at least as a follow up to [Enough](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097842/chapters/27425670).

Taako showed up at Magnus’s uninvited with a plate of brownies in hand. They hadn’t seen each other as regularly as they had in the rebuilding year, prior. And that was saying something, considering they’d both gone their own ways to help with their respective projects and endeavours and fallen quickly out of the routine of spending nearly every day together as they had in their adventures and their days living on the moonbase. And since Carey and Killian’s wedding, where Magnus and Lucretia had decided to get back together, Magnus had been even more scarce. 

And since Taako and Lucretia’s argument, when Taako had dropped by, again unannounced, on a night not unlike this one, things had been tense. In Taako’s usual fashion, he acted as if it had never happened. And in Magnus’s usual fashion, he wouldn’t be the one to bring it up first, because he wanted Taako to learn from his mistakes and apologize on his own. But he knew that was a pipe dream. 

They’d hooked up a few times since then. They didn’t really acknowledge it, but that was nothing new. 

It had happened this way at Magnus’s place a few times before: Taako showed up out of the blue, they talked about everything except what they really needed to, and sometimes it ended in bed, and other times it ended in slammed doors. And now, Magnus had finally gathered the courage to bring up something they  _ really  _ needed to talk about. He could guess about how well this one was going to go. 

Taako was still going on about something he and Ren had cooked the other night in the spirit of experimentation that had gone terribly wrong. Magnus didn't hear a word. 

Magnus cut him off mid sentence. “While you're here, I think we should talk about what happened back when Lucretia was visiting...” 

Taako shut his mouth and blinked. Magnus waited for a response instead of filling the silence like he wanted to. 

“How about we leave the past in the past, m’man? We’ve both moved on from that now,” Taako said dismissively, waving a hand carelessly. 

“Have we?” 

Taako raised a perfectly lined brow. “Well don't tell me  _ you _ haven't.” 

“I mean, no… it was totally inappropriate and you still haven't apologized,” said Magnus. 

The roll of Taako’s eyes gave him away. “You're right. I'm so sorry that the house I happened to have a long- _ deserved  _ argument with Lucretia was yours.” 

Magnus centered himself. He wasn’t going to play into Taako’s games. Not tonight. 

“All I wanted to say was that no, I haven’t moved past it. You can feel however you want to about Lucretia, I can’t control that. But if she’s around, just… don’t? Do that?” 

Taako flinched. “She gonna be around much, my dude?” 

He took a deep breath in. “Uh… yeah, me and Lucretia…” 

“So, you’re sleeping together, I mean, whatever, right?” Taako muttered. Magnus knew it wasn’t  _ whatever,  _ but he was afraid of what was coming once he broke the  _ actual  _ news. “Doesn’t mean she’s gonna be, y’know,  _ around..”  _

Magnus inhaled, then exhaled deeply once more. “Lucretia and I aren’t  _ sleeping together,  _ Taako, we’re--” 

“Oh, yeah, that’s fuckin’ rich,” Taako interrupted with a scoff. “You expect me to believe that you and  _ Madam Director  _ haven’t been fucking since before the wedding?” 

Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I meant, we’re not just, like, sleeping together. We’re back together.” 

Taako leaned back in his chair, his jaw clenched tight.

“Oh, that is fucking  _ hilarious.”  _ He laughed to hide the tremble in his voice but wasn’t very successful. How could he, with the bomb Magnus had just tossed into his lap? “Did she feed all those memories of her fucking up our lives to the Voidfish too, or have you just decided you don’t give a flying fuck?” 

This was going to go about as well as Magnus had expected it would. 

“Calm down, Taako.” 

He laughed again, teetering closer to hysterics. “Calm? Oh, Taako’s calm. Who’s  _ not  _ calm right now?” 

Magnus sighed. “Can we please just have a conversation about this without you launching into this act you always pull?” 

Taako gave him a disgusted look. “Oh man, this is all  _ fucking  _ hilarious. Am I on Fantasy Punk’d right now? For real?” 

Magnus turned away to fix himself a glass of water. Taako was still rambling to himself about how this  _ had  _ to be a joke, that someone was gonna let him in on the prank as soon as he made enough of a bit out of the whole thing. 

“You sure know how to pick ‘em, my man.” 

He turned and shot Taako a warning look. 

“Well really, what would it take to drive you away? A huge, life-fucking betrayal wasn’t enough for you? Are you a fucking masochist?” 

“Enough, Taako.”  

“Really, I wanna know: what  _ would  _ it take?” 

Magnus squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “It’s not your business either way. The way I've dealt with this, the conversations I've had with her, they're none of your business. It's not my fault you decided to make your business  _ everyone else’s  _ too _.  _ I don’t need your permission to reconcile with someone I love.” 

It had slipped from his mouth without thinking. Magnus blinked. 

Taako cackled hysterically; the noise grated on his ears like a rusted gate opening a path to a place he’d been trying desperately to avoid.

“Love?” 

“Yes.”

Taako shook his head. “Lemme ask you one thing, Maggie: where do you get off  _ loving _ people who fucked me up forever? Just curious.’Cause you’d think all that time we spent together would be enough to make you give a shit about me, but clearly not.” 

“Taako, I care about you. You’re my family. This doesn't change that.”

“That wasn't the question.” 

“What do you want me to say? ‘Oh, you’re right Taako, she made a mistake that messed you, and  _ only you,  _ up, alright, I won’t ever talk to her again’? Are you serious? It hurt all of us.” 

“Oh, yeah, ‘cause you got _such_ a bad deal out of it, _bubbeleh_. Give me a fuckin’ break. At least you didn’t wind up with a dickhole who verbally beat the shit out of you, _murdered_ 40 _fuckin’_ people, framed you for it, and left you high and dry. You got a wife out of the whole deal for fuck’s sake! And let’s not even _talk about_ how I forgot my sister. My _twin_ _fucking sister._ You have no clue. _”_

“Don’t go there, everyone at Raven’s Roost--” He stopped himself abruptly and swallowed the rest of the sentence, unable to bring himself to bring his departed, beloved town into the fray. “I forgot Lup, too. I forgot Lucretia. I forgot  _ you.  _ I have some idea of how it feels.”  __

“You have no fucking idea how it feels. No idea. None at all, so cut the shit. I thought I lived my whole goddamn life alone, I kept Sazed around because he was the only one who could even  _ pretend  _ to give a shit about me, and he was there just for the fuckin’ laugh!. Oh, you forgot your  _ girlfriend?” _ mocked Taako. “ _ This was her fault!  _ All of it! All of it.” 

Magnus glowered, at a loss on how to even start unraveling what Taako had just said. Maybe he was right. Maybe he really didn’t understand. Taako was so different now than the man he’d known, and loved, on the Starblaster. As he stared at him, he felt a tug of nostalgia that made him nauseous. He'd known Taako, both Taakos, deeply. Intimately. But this Taako, he didn't know him at all. 

Magnus exhaled, trying to reconcile all the thoughts that had sent him spinning. “Lucretia and I have had our own problems, and we worked them out. I didn't just-- this isn't your business, but we fought about it too. And you were in the middle of a lot of that, believe it or not, but she went out of her way to give you space, offered apologies where they were due--” 

Taako rolled his eyes. 

“She did. She made an effort to make things better. What did you do? Ignore her? Pick fights with her only to make her feel like shit?”

“She  _ deserves  _ to feel li--”

“Shut up. This is what I'm talking about, you want me to give a shit about how you feel, but you don't give a shit about how anyone else feels!” 

“Why should I?” 

“I-- I-- you really believe she did this just to hurt you, don't you?” 

The rhetorical question caught Taako off guard. “You really believe it should be water under bridge?” 

“Just because you can't let go doesn't mean I have to be alone for the rest of my life!” 

“Yeah? Two years ago you were gung-ho on being alone!” 

“Two years ago I didn’t know about  _ any _ of this!” 

“Why is she the  _ exception,  _ what did she do to earn that?” Taako spat. “What changed for her that didn’t change for me?” 

Magnus put a hand on his forehead in disbelief. “Change for  _ you?  _ You’re the one who was too busy with Kravitz to spend any time alone with me, save for when he couldn’t be around, right? Like your fucking backup plan? And you’re  _ happy  _ with him and I’m happy  _ for you.  _ But why should you get to move on and not me?” 

“We’re not-- I told you that you were always welcome to--” Taako stammered, still mulling on the apparent miscommunication between them. 

“I’m not talking about sleeping together. That is what it is. I’m talking about the coin you keep flipping here, how you want to sleep with me casually but then you’re looking for a commitment. It can’t be both, and you’re too chickenshit to just say it to me straight.” 

Taako stammered, heat rising to his face as he searched for a comeback. When he came up with nothing, Magnus shook his head. 

“Can I make my own damn decisions? So you don’t want me and Luce to be together. Sure, let me just shape the rest of my life around your feelings that evidently even  _ you  _ can’t decide on. Yeah, that seems totally fair. Cool.” 

The heat on his cheeks turned into red-hot anger. “It’d be DOPE if you gave a fuck about my feelings at all! Fair’s fair m’dude!” 

“Is this about  _ us _ , Taako?” Magnus said, tone laced with poison. “Is it? Is this just you stirring shit up because you’re  _ jealous?  _ Or because you can’t stand the thought of me being happy ot moving forward with my life while you dwell in all the bullshit that’s over and done with now?” 

Teeth gritted, he said, “Yeah, Mags, I’m jealous and I'm just playing games and I’m wallowing in my own shit! Yup. That’s the problem and you fuckin’ solved it! Fuck!” Taako wiped his sleeve hastily over his nose, looking more agitated than before. Magnus didn’t like the way Taako was looking at him; the look of disgust, disbelief,  _ anger...   _ It scared him. He’d never seen Taako’s wrath turned towards him before. “I guess I’m just not sure why everyone fucking things I’m the one who needs to let go? And why  _ Lucy  _ is the exception to the fucking rule? Maybe I was so  _ busy _ with Krav ‘cause you told me many-a-night on the moon that you were emotionally unavailable for the rest of forever, but now?” 

“Don’t! We didn’t know ANY of this at the time, neither of us, so don’t start--” 

“I don’t know, Mags! She’s worth this  _ exception _ to you? It was  _ aaaaall _ Julia this, Julia that, and now it’s like she didn’t even--” 

Magnus slammed a hand on the countertop. “Don’t you  _ FUCKING _ DARE!” 

Taako stopped abruptly, realizing immediately what he’d done, silver tongue lashing just where it would hurt until he cut deep into the irreparable. “Maggie--” 

“Don’t-- I-- I--” Magnus stammered, pressing his still-outstretched palm to the counter to hold himself up. His breath came and left him quicker now. Taako knew this spiral. He’d held him through it so many times, on the Starblaster, in his bed, on the moon, on their bedrolls beside a campfire as Merle slept. On the ground after it was all over. 

Magnus hadn’t needed him since. And now… 

“Magnus, wait, I didn’t mean--” Taako pleaded, scrambling to fix what he’d done. “Wait, wait, just-- no, no, no,  _ fuck,  _ you  _ fucking dipshit!”  _ he cursed himself. 

Magnus’s chest and shoulders heaved. His wide eyes stared down at the countertop, the floor, somewhere deep, deep beneath the ground. Tears dripped onto the marble; he blinked twice and opened his mouth in a better effort to breathe. It only set his jaw open and tense, looking as if he were about to say something but couldn’t force the words out. 

Taako timidly reached a hand out to touch his arm. Magnus swatted his hand away and moved back towards the cabinets, just trying to get a grip on something to steady him. Tears flowed down his cheeks. 

“I didn’t mean-- no, no, baby, please--” he babbled apologies, peppered with long-unspoken pet names. The realization that he couldn’t undo this damage pulled him apart.

“Go,” Magnus breathed, still staring wide-eyed at the marble below. 

“What?” 

“Go home.” 

Taako walked to him and reached to touch him again. 

“Fucking-- stop!” Magnus yelled, grabbing Taako by the wrist and pushing his arm away. He looked sorry for it even in his panic. Taako retracted his hand, knowing the anxiety touch brought for Magnus in arguments like these.  “When will you learn to just  _ walk away?”  _ Magnus collected himself enough to jab. Despite his state, he still had some fight left in him. A dying flame. “Why do you have to fight and fight until the other person breaks? Why do you want to burn  _ every single bridge you have left?”  _

Taako set his jaw. He couldn’t look at him. 

“We’re your family whether you like it or not. Grow up and go home.”

“I-- I’m sorry, alright? I just--” 

“Have you ever considered that maybe  _ you're the problem?”  _

In any other case, Taako would have railed against the accusation and continued the argument. But instead he looked away and gathered up his bag and listened to the sound of Magnus sobbing into his hand.

“Listen, I'm sorry...”

Magnus couldn't speak.

Taako hesitated, heart hammering, then made for the door. He stepped quickly outside into the crisp nighttime air, closed the door, and let out a stream of curse words. 

“Fucking  _ idiot  _ piece of  _ shit  _ you fucking ruin  _ everything  _ you stupid fucking--” he hissed, kicking a post of the porch until his foot ached. Finally, he started to cry. He took out his stone of farspeech. 

He sobbed as soon as she answered. “I fucked up, Lu.”

 

Inside, Magnus slumped against a wall, unable to steady his breathing. He reached for someone who wasn't there and sank to the floor. 

 


End file.
